Daily Projections: The Clock (1945)

Title: The Clock
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Country of Origin: USA
Year: 1945
Screening format: TV (TCM)
Setting: Home
First viewing? no

Could Vincente Minnelli’s whirlwind wartime romance The Clock have been made had it not been, well, wartime? In a sense, yes. Light speed romance movies had been made before (Lonesome: 1928) and since (Before Sunrise: 1995) with several others in between. But The Clock has a subtle lyricism about it that I don’t think can be found in similar films, and much of that is due to the wartime setting. Robert Walker is, after all, a soldier on leave, about to return to the front. As such, there is a cloud of potentially impending doom constantly hovering in the background. And, though characters rarely address it directly, they do live as though every moment is precious because there really may not be a future for them. It’s actually refreshing to see Judy Garland act without breaking into song at any point. And James Gleason is always a highlight of any film he appears in. But what is most remarkable about The Clock is the elegance with which the subject matter is treated. Minnelli never really resorts to melodrama or sappy romance, though the temptation must have been very real. The Clock is instead funny, romantic, suspenseful, heart-breaking and uplifting. It is genuinely sweet and unselfconscious and, like any whirlwind romance, over all too quickly.

Daily Projections, 1-11-2019: Winter Woman (1977)

Title: Winter Woman
Director: KIM Ho-sun
Country of Origin: South Korea
Year: 1977
Screening format: Streaming (YouTube)
Setting: Home
First viewing? Yes

Notes: Winter Woman was, apparently, the best selling Korean film of the 1970s, based on a popular novel with a rather leftist message (at least for 1970s South Korea). I haven’t read the novel and I won’t pretend to be an expert on that period of Korean history. All I can say for sure is that Winter Woman, especially the first hour, tends to err on the side of confusing. I had to pause the film multiple times to consult a synopsis of the novel in order to understand what was happening on the screen only to find out come the end that Winter Woman the film is only kinda like the novel to the point that, if you changed the title and the character names, someone familiar with both could easily write off any similarities as coincidence. Anyway, the film made Chang Mi-hee a star in Korea, but so much of her performance is overshadowed by an overindulgence in non-diegetic sound (far too much reverb on all narrated segments and a soundtrack alternating between Bach and cheesy 1970s synthesizers). I know the point of the film is, ostensibly, the sexual autonomy of Korean women, which is all well and good, but I can’t help but think that I-hwa’s naïveté sets her up for trouble early on. Twice, she tells a man (different men) “I’ll go anywhere with you”. Not a good idea.

Daily Projections, 12-20-2018: Pickpocket (1959)

Title: Pickpocket
Director: Robert Bresson
Country of Origin: France
Year: 1959
Screening format: Blu-ray
Setting: Home
First viewing? Yes

My first Bresson. Bresson, whose reputation for grace and economy precede him. Maybe Pickpocket is a strange place to start with Bresson. It’s admittedly hard to get a handle on what is going on here at first. Michel is a pickpocket, perhaps a kleptomaniac, stealing for the thrill of it. As he teams with accomplices, his exploits become more daring and yet, while Michel claims to be afraid of getting caught, it seems as if he almost invites his own downfall. After all, a thief who never locks his door when he leaves home even though there are stolen goods all over the place. Is he really that brazen? Or is there a part of him that wants to stop stealing but knows he could never chose a crime free life on his own but would have to be led to it by a power greater than he is? The pickpocketing scenes themselves are downright riveting. Tightly choreographed and elegant, they form a digital (as in fingers, not computers) ballet. Surely it is no accident, then, that the entire score of the film is comprised of works by Jean Baptiste Lully, a composer who revolutionized ballet and French dance music as a whole in the second half of the 17^th century.

Daily Projections, 12-18-2018: My Dear Enemy (2008)

Title: My Dear Enemy
Director: LEE Yoon-ki
Country of Origin: South Korea
Year: 2008
Screening Format: Blu-ray
Setting: Home
First viewing? Yes

IMDB classifies My Dear Enemy as a “road movie”, and it is. Sort of. My Dear Enemy is to road movies as a day spent running errands is to road trips. You spend a lot of time in the car without ever really going anywhere. The journey here is an emotional one. Hee-su (played by Korea’s Queen of Cannes JEON Do-yeon) tracks down her ex Byung-woon to collect on a debt he can’t pay. They spend the remainder of the day together, gathering a little money here and there to pay his debt. Byung-woon believes the best about people, while Hee-su has built a wall of cynicism around herself. This is masterfully translated into the look of the film. In social situations, Byung-woon gets stuck right in while Hee-su stands apart, rarely speaking. Visually, too, she is shot frequently in reflection, through glass, or partially obscured by a barrier. Throughout the day, those barriers are gradually worn down until she interacts with others of her own accord. Beautifully shot making often masterful use of the 2.35 aspect ratio while at other times intentionally refusing to use the entire frame (mirroring the editing: elegant long takes interspersed with series of quick, superfluous cuts), LEE Yoon-ki’s My Dear Enemy is a sensitive and subtle film worth a deeper look in the future.

Daily Projections, 12-08-2018; Listen (2017)

Title: Listen
Director: Philippe Aractingi
Country of Origin: Lebanon
Year: 2017
Screening format: Streaming
Setting: Home
First viewing: Yes

Notes: Joud is a young recording engineer whose ears are his life until girlfriend Rana falls into a coma as a result of a hit and run accident, then his ears become hers. Inspired by the knowledge that coma patients can still hear sound, Joud is intent on coaxing Rana back to the waking world (which provides ample opportunity for the film’s sound editor, Rana Eid, to really strut her stuff). On its surface, perhaps, Listen is a film about love and commitment, but there’s more to it. Maybe it’s really about obsession or lost causes. Every major character is somehow lost within themselves: Rana within her own unconsciousness, Joud in his single-minded quest for a cure,and Rana’s sister Marwa with her pending marriage and desire for independence. The topic of fidelity (of men, of family, of Beirut itself) is broached many times while the questions of clinging to the past, living in the present, and planning for the future continually pull at each other. Is the fool the man who clings to the past or the one who forges full steam into the future? Or is it anyone who fails to embrace the two? There are issues at play here that I, having never actually lived in Lebanon, have only partial access to through the filter of my own relatives. Perhaps the woman in the coma is Lebanon itself, yet to truly awaken from its war-induced slumber. I don’t know. But that’s another question for another time. One I may never be fully equipped to answer.

Daily Projections, 12-06-2018: Footlight Parade (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Title: Footlight Parade
Director: Busby Berkeley, Lloyd Bacon
Country of Origin: USA
Year: 1933
Screening format: TV (TCM)
Setting: Home
First viewing? Goodness, no

Notes: I must have seen Footlight Parade at least a dozen times by now, but I still find it completely irresistible. A lot of that has to do with James Cagney and Joan Blondell, one of the greatest pairings of the 1930s. Watching this today in particular has led me perhaps to an even greater appreciation of the genius of Busby Berkeley. As entertaining as it was, a film like Tanned Legs,which I watched earlier today, so static and stagey as dictated by 1929 movie making technology feels like little mere than a curiosity compared to the elaborate stagings, intricate choreography, and fluid camera work on display in this (and all) Busby Berkeley musicals. I do have to say, I always feel a distant sense of melancholy any time I watch Footlight Parade. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it always leaves me wondering what might have been. James Cagney, who always wanted to be a song and dance man, is such a smooth, relaxed, effortless dancer. One can’t help but wonder what kind of wonderful films he might have made if he’d been allowed to pursue his true love rather than being stuck in the gangster roles he made so famous.

Title: Gold Diggers of 1933
Director: Mervyn LeRoy, Busby Berkeley
Country of Origin: USA
Year: 1933
Screening format: TV (TCM)
Setting: Home
First viewing? No

Notes: Busby Berkeley cranked out a lot of pictures in 1933. But with all of their elaborate sets and glitzy costumes, none of them sparkles quite as brightly as Gold Diggers of 1933 and that’s down to more than just the silver dollar dresses spin round the “We’re In The Money” number. The speed of the dialog throughout Gold Diggers is downright blistering with some of the most glistening barbs emanating from Aline McMahon’s Trixie Lorraine while Joan Blondell gets a fair few shots in herself. Ruby Keeler is, of course, as sweet and innocent as ever. Playing somewhat against type (though that type had yet to be too firmly established) Ginger Rogers is a sharp-tongued rival of the main trio. Watching Gold Diggers, one gets the impression that good old Dick Powell is relishing the opportunity to play the merry prankster as he pulls one over on his snooty family. Gold Diggers features several memorable numbers (as all Berkeley pictures do) including the aforementioned “We’re in the money” (complete with pig Latin verse, the exceptionally racy “Pettin’ in the Park” and the unforgettable homage to the Depression era suffering of WWI vets,“Remember My Forgotten Man”.

Daily Projections, 12-1-2018: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)

Title: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Director: Mike Newell
Country of Origin: UK
Year: 2018
Screening format: Streaming (Netflix)
Setting: Home
First viewing? Yes

Notes: Well acted and well executed Netflix drama about a young writer and an obscure book club. But it’s not really about that at all, is it? Guernsey is about the scars of war and the long, impossible healing process.At times predictable (all the way down to the troperific writerly montage) but enough small twists and intrigue to sustain the full two hours. (The Guernsey landscape itself is enough to carry half the weight, should that be necessary.)

All in all, a pleasant way to spend an evening. I only have one gripe with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and that is this. Why, oh why are we still using handheld cameras to film static shots? You can’t find a tripod or a table or something?Aside from that (and my genuine curiosity as to how two dozen roses gifted at different times managed to stay fresh and in bloom over the span of at least a month) I have no complaints.